


You Can't Know

by pirategirljack



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Deckerstar - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:07:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8454694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirategirljack/pseuds/pirategirljack
Summary: After Lucifer hurts Chloe's feelings, she can't sleep.(the tag the thing wouldn't let me put in: chloe totally does understand you lucifer even without understanding the details you won't tell her you idiot)





	

She should have been asleep at least an hour ago at the very latest, more like two hours ago if she was smart, but Chloe couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong with her partner. And it made her feel wrong. He was usually vaguely endangering, but the last day or so he'd been specifically, personally dangerous. To himself. If there was one thing she knew about Lucifer, it was that he valued himself more than almost anything else, and the fact that he was actively trying to get himself killed told her that this was much more of a problem than he let on.

And she kept seeing his face when he said she couldn't understand. He was pushing her away...but it looked like it hurt him as much as it hurt her, like he wanted her to understand even as he fully believed she actually couldn't.

She wanted to understand, too.

She called her mom to watch the house while she ducked out (Maze was as unconscious as Trixie still), threw on some clothes, and went all the way to Lucifer’s penthouse carefully not thinking too hard about what she was doing or what she'd find when she got there. She thought maybe she'd talk herself out of it, but more than that, she thought she might find something terrible when she got there.

All she knew was that her gut was saying he needed her.

The place was a disaster, empty bottles, prodigious amounts of old food, scattered clothes from at least a dozen people...but Lucifer was alone in the middle of it. Not moving. Not even drinking the expensive drink in his hand or smoking the cigarette burning itself out beside him.

“Lucifer?”

“Go away, Detective,” he said, but he just sounded tired, soul tired, tired as the whole of time.

“No.” 

He moved his gaze toward her and quirked an eyebrow just the barest amount, but didn’t protest. She sat beside him. After the slightest hesitation, she put her hand over his, and for a moment, they just stayed like that, neither moving, neither acknowledging the contact. She thought she heard him take a deep breath like he hadn’t breathed properly in a very long time--and then he shuddered and tried to hide it, pulled away and tried to make it look like he was reclining in his usual decadence.

It didn’t work very well.

“Why are you here, Detective?”

“I don’t know.”

“No?”

“I...I felt like I was needed. It’s stupid. But here I am.”

“Here you are.”

He didn't agree with her that it was stupid; she felt like she was figuring out a puzzle. Lucifer tilted his glass at her, and she took a sip before handing it back to him. He almost smiled, and then it fizzled out.

“I’m still not going to talk about my feelings.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No? Three days of trying to get me to spill all my troubles and you just give up? I expected more perseverance from you.”

“I haven’t given up on you. Is that what you expect? That I’ll just, what, ditch you somewhere and wash my hands of you?”

“Everyone does, eventually.” There it was again, that tone like he was as old as the world.

“I don’t believe that.”

“You don’t understand.”

“And you think I never will. But you’re wrong, Lucifer. You’re so wrong. All I want is to understand.”

“You can’t.”

“But you want me to.”

His pained arrogance faltered, just like that. “Yes.”

And just like that, his pain was hers. Tears burned in her eyes. Her hand shook as she raised it to his face and smoothed her palm over the dark stubble on his cheek, too long to be rakishly artful, long enough to start to go soft. He turned into her touch and his eyes closed like it was all he ever wanted, but also like it hurt him. “What happened?”

And this time, he answered.

“I have other brothers than Amenadiel. Even a few sisters. One of them--a younger brother--died. It was my fault.”

“How?”

“He was...disturbed. He wanted--he wanted to kill you. And mother. He--he wanted to decide everyone’s fates--”

That was a lot to unpack, and she wanted to ask a thousand questions, but Lucifer was collapsing like a tower crumbling into dust, and all she could do was catch him as he curled into her, hold him as he came apart at the seams, crying like a child. “He didn’t kill me,” she said. “You stopped him? You stopped him.”

It wasn’t what a cop should say.

There was a case here, a job to do.

But there was also a friend who needed comfort, one who said a lot of things that she couldn’t take at face value, and maybe this was another of those things; she’d check it out later. Right now, this was her job.

 

In the morning, Chloe woke to an empty couch, but there was a blanket pulled over her, and the space beside her was still warm and hollow; he hadn’t been up long. And he wasn't far away, fussing about the loft while throwing looks in her direction. Sheepish looks. Something close to actual embarrassment.

She never once thought she'd see that.

“Ah. You’re awake. Your phone rang; there’s a case.”

She eyed him, trying to figure out what sort of Lucifer this was; he seemed to be subdued, and until now, she hadn’t thought that was possible. “There always is.”

He offered her half a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes, and that heavy sadness was still there in every line of his face. He’d gotten changed, combed his hair. He hadn't shaved yet. “No rest for the wicked,” he said.

She sat up, and Lucifer hesitated...and then very deliberately came over to her, and knelt down before her, taking her hand in his, like it was a ritual he had to get right. “I was wrong when I said you couldn’t understand. There’s--there’s things I can’t tell you yet, but I think you understand the heart of them more than anyone else.”

His sincerity made her feel like the world was tilting. “It was nothing.”

“No, it was everything.” He held her hand for a moment longer, and held her gaze until his point was made, then he kissed her palm and stood before she could react to that small intimacy. “There’s clothes in the closet if you feel like changing, or we can detour to your place if you like, it's on the way.”

“Decent clothes?”

“Maze’s leftovers.”

“Pass. Hard pass.”

“Kidding. I took the liberty of getting you some emergency outfits some time ago, after the first time you stayed the night.”

The barest hint of that naughty sparkle, and it made the world seem alright again. “I did not ‘stay the night’.”

“It was night. You stayed.”

“That’s not the same thing and you know it.”

He’d made coffee, and the clean clothes were already on the bed and not horrible, and he looked more apologetic than anything else, but they bickered almost like normal, and he looked a regular sort of tired. In the elevator down to the car, she laid a hand on his arm.

“You’re alright?”

“Not remotely,” he said, “but I won’t try to die anymore. Pointless, anyway, what with being immortal and all.” But he covered her hand with his before he moved to leave the elevator.

Something had changed between them, and she thought, just maybe, it was a good something.


End file.
